Bubbles
by be-heard
Summary: Hermione introduces her friends to an interesting muggle candy. For an afternoon, they just get to be silly kids having fun. Much more lighthearted than my first story.


Ginny awoke from her nap with a start. She had flinched at the popping sound and grabbed her wand, startling Croockshanks, who had been laying across Ginny's feet. The cat stood and leaped over to the chair, landing in Hermione's lap.

"What was that?" Ginny asked, recovering slightly from her surprise after seeing how calmly Hermione was sitting on the chair

"What?"

"I heard a popping sound." said Ginny "Maybe a spell or someone apparating."

Hermione laughed and shook her head. Ginny noticed that she was chewing on something. A small, pink bubble formed at Hermione's lips and grew. Ginny jumped off the bed and slapped her hand over the thing, squashing it. It flattened out, covering Hermione's mouth.

"What was that for?" Hermione complained, muffled through the pink substance

"It wasn't about to suffocate you? It had covered your entire mouth and was moving for your nose. I thought you couldn't breathe."

While Ginny had been speaking worriedly, Hermione had gotten the pink blob back in her mouth and was chewing it again.

"What the hell is that?" Ginny demanded

"You've never seen chewing gum?" asked Hermione, stroking Croockshanks

"Chewing gum?" repeated Ginny dumbly

"I guess not." Hermione paused to laugh at the surprised look on her friend's face. "I suppose it makes sense, because it's a muggle invention. You chew it and then you can blow bubbles with it."

"What's the point?"

"I guess there isn't one, but it's fun. It tastes good, like a candy, but it's also entertaining."

"How can you have time for something this fun and silly with all the books you read?" Ginny accused Hermione

"I used to do both at the same time," said Hermione "but I stopped because sometime it got messy. If I made a giant bubble, it tended to get all over the page I was reading. I also learned to be careful with my hair, because after getting some gum stuck in it once, I got an awful haircut. I looked like a chia pet."

"A what?"

"Never mind. The point is that I like chewing gum just because it's fun."

"Would you teach me?" Ginny asked

At this point, Harry and Ron happened to walk into the doorway.

"Let me guess, Hermione, you're teaching Ginny something you learned in a book." Ron accused

Hermione shook her head and blew a bubble.

"Nope," Hermione said, once the gum was back in her mouth "I'm teaching her how to do that."

Ron looked confused, but Harry grinned.

"Would you teach me too, Hermione?" he asked

"Sure, Harry, come take a seat."

Harry entered the room and sat next to Ginny on her bed. Ron followed, figuring this might be entertaining. He also sat on the bed.

Hermine reached into her pocket, adjusting Croockshanks on her lap. She pulled out a brightly pink package which matched the color of the gum she was chewing. She pulled out two individually wrapped cubes and tossed one each to Harry and Ginny.

"Ron?" she asked, holding up a third wrapped cube "You too?"

"Why not?" he said, and she threw him the gum

Harry already had the wrapper off his gum and was chewing it, grinning, but Ginny was reading the words on her's.

"Sugar free?" she asked "Why does it say that, Hermione.?"

"My parents are dentists. They figure it's better for your teeth."

"Oh," said Ginny "Alright."

She took the paper off her gum to reveal a very pink cube, which she placed in her mouth and started to chew slowly. Ron was starting to put the whole thing in his mouth, wrapper and all, when Hermione stopped him.

"Ron!" she said, and he looked up, still holding the cube near his mouth "You have to take the paper off."

He said nothing, but took the packaging off his gum and put it in his mouth, his ears turning slightly red in embarrassment.

"Just chew it for a few minutes and then I'll show you how to make bubble." Hermione told them

She watched her friends chew for a little while while she petted her cat.

"Alright, now I'll teach you. Flatten out the gum between your tongue and the roof of your mouth." she paused to give them time to follow her first instruction, and watched Harry, Ron, and Ginny make strange faces in their attempts to flatten their gum "Now move the flat gum to the front of your mouth, but now make it vertical against you teeth. Open you lips a tiny bit and push some of the gum forward with your tongue, then blow out your mouth."

Hermione watched as Ginny stuck her tongue out of her mouth with no gum on it at all and Ron's face started to turn red from trying to inflate his gum. Suddenly, Ron lost the gum altogether, and it sailed in a small arc to land on Croockshanks. All four of them froze to watch the cat, which had jumped when the pink blob hit it. Hermione picked up her wand, and performed a charm that removed the gum from the her cat.

After that, Ron decided to just watch, instead of trying to blow bubbles himself.

Harry and Ginny continued for about twenty minutes with no success, until Harry finally managed to make a tiny bubble, which didn't even cover his whole mouth when it popped.

He grinned hugely at his friends before removing the deflated gum bubble from his lips.

"That was awesome, Hermione!" he said "You're a good teacher."

"Thanks, Harry." said Hermione

"When I lived with the Dursleys, they bought gum for Dudley when he wanted it. Once I made the mistake of asking if he would share. He took the gum he was chewing and stuck it in my hair. So I'd seen gum, but I had never had the chance to learn how to blow bubbles with it."

Harry decided not to ruin his small success with more failure, so he spit his gum in the garbage, follow by Ginny. Ginny hadn't managed to blow a bubble, but said "I give up."

"Now Hermione," said Ginny "I saw you make a bigger bubble earlier, how about you show us how it's done."

Hermione took a few seconds to flatten her gum before moving it to the front of her mouth to start her bubble. The pink orb started small, them grew as Hermione kept inflating it. Her three friends watched as it covered her whole mouth, them kept getting bigger. It finally popped, covering her whole mouth, a little bit of her chin and cheeks, and part of her nose.

Laughing, Harry, Ron, and Ginny stood up and helped Hermione get the gum off her face.

Author's Note

Halfway through writing this story I remembered that wizards did have bubble gum (Droobles Best Blowing Gum). I guess that small fact will have to be ignored for this story to work. When I realized this, I felt like an idiot, so I guess my excuse would be that none of the wizards in this story had ever bought bubble gum (which sort of makes sense because they don't exactly have time for silly things like bubble gum with a wizard like Voldemort on the loose). Please excuse this writer's mistake. I decided to write this story because I just recently learned how to blow bubbles with gum. I figured that out of the four characters I used in this story, Hermione would be the one who knew about gum because she grew up with muggle parents. Obviously the Dursleys would have never given Harry gum, and Ron and Ginny are in a family of wizards who would not know about muggle gum. Wow, I don't usually write author's notes, and this one is long. Sorry it's so long, I just felt I needed to explain this story a bit. I hope you liked it!


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